Because ethnic disparities whether it’s dealing with legislations, policies, laws, reparations exist. That is the society that we live in. When you quoted me I never mentioned the word racism you inferred that I did.
If you say that the only reason people oppose it is due to it being about AFRICANS, then it s hard to interpret it any other way.
How else would you describe discrimination against people because they are Africans?
I could have mentioned there being an inherent bias. People often think that in order to right the wrongs monetarily, it must go to the original victims. People forget generational suffering due to the original offense.
Should the Germans also pay reparations for the 'generational suffering' caused by WW2?
My grandad went from a teetotal sportsman, to an abusive, alcoholic who gambled compulsively and ended up leaving my gran and mum homeless. Luckily she didn't get trapped in a spiral of poverty as my gran was a very strong woman, but many others of that generation did.
Establishing a principle where such people are required to pay for the crimes of even earlier generations, and giving the money to people who were less directly impacted doesn't seem very fair to me.
So now you’re prohibited to be involved in politics which may determine your future and the future of your family. So now years and decades go by with lost opportunities to where your family has lost a chance at a equal quality of life, mind you, equality in which your newly found country espouses as being “free.”
So now you live in a country for decades with no equitable social opportunity for growth. Sure, you’re free and not under the whip of a taskmaster, but now you live in segregation where now your opportunities are limited because of who you are and how you look. So now, when you die, your children’s children have to deal with the continuance of social injustice.
Many groups faced historical injustice though. Even if we assume black Americans, an average, faced worse discrimination, what is an 'acceptable' level of discrimination that your forebears faced before you too are due reparations?
The point I’m trying to make is, reparations is not just about awarding the original victims but about giving the victims and their descendants an equitable chance at least fiscally. This is ultimately the major argument from the African Diaspora position.
If you spent $1 trillion and gave every black person in America $25,000 how much long term difference would that actually make though? It's no silver bullet. For the vast majority of people, that wouldn't end up being generational money. If you decided to means test it so only the poorest quarter got $100,000, you would end up 'punishing' many lower middle class people for hard work which means they just missed out on qualifying.
And when that fails to solve many of the current issues, what happens next? More reparations?
It would certainly create an enormous amount of resentment though. There are a lot of impoverished people in America, a lot of underfunded services, and when people see large cash handouts being spent on cars and designer clothing, which
some people would do, what sort of social effect would this have (and not just among whites)?
Historical racism is only one contributing factor to poverty and is not the main one, and 'generational suffering' is not limited to the black community. Reparations would ultimately involve some degree of poor people paying money to be given to other less poor people who have more money and opportunities than them. You would also have black people paying reparations to other black people simply because they had worked harder than them.
Reparations in this case has both ethical and effectiveness issues.